Adelaide Crapsey

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Sun and wind and beat of sea,Great lands stretching endlessly...Where be bonds to bind the free?All the world was made for me!

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Sea-foam And coral! Oh, I'll Climb the great pasture rocks And dream me mermaid in the sun's Gold flood

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When I was girl by Nilus stream I watched the deserts stars arise; My lover, he who dreamed the Sphinx, Learned all his dreaming from eyes. I bore in Greece a burning name, And I have been in Italy Madonna to a painter-lad, And mistress to a Medici. And have you heard (and I have heard) Of puzzled men with decorous mien, Who judged - the wench knew far too much - And burnt her on the Salem green?

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But me They cannot touch, Old age and death. .the strange And ignominious end of old Dead folk!

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In your Curled petals what ghosts Of blue headlands and seas, What perfumed immortal breath sighing Of Greece